Charles River Watershed
Association
Sarah Little, s-little@mediaone.net, (781) 235-5801, 03/06/2001
======================= Bio ==========================
Sarah Little is Wellesley Health Department’s Pesticide Awareness Coordinator. She has a PhD. from the Earth and Planetary Sciences Department at MIT and, as a concerned parent, was drawn into the area of local toxics use reduction.
======================= Article =======================
A lot of people do not realize that pesticides kill more than just pests. Most of the chemicals applied to suburban lawns are highly toxic to aquatic species, including beneficial insects such as dragonflies, which spend their early life in the water. If you read the labels of these pesticides you will find warnings to keep the product out of bodies of water. However, if you walk down a suburban street on a spring day, you’ll see pesticides on lawns, on sidewalks, and even in the streets. It only takes one rainy day to bring these toxic chemicals to a body of water. After a rain, the pellets, powders and sprays wash into the street and form little rivulets, the kind that children love to play in. They meet with other rivulets to create streams that flow to the nearest storm drain. The storm drains empty into either local ponds or straight into our own Charles River, pouring in a cocktail of chemicals. The sum total of all of the individual homeowners who believe pesticides and synthetic fertilizers are necessary for a green lawn can cause a serious degradation of river life.
The Wellesley Pesticide Awareness Campaign (WPAC) hopes to change these attitudes and practices. Pesticides are not necessary for creating beautiful lawns. Some of the most beautiful lawns in America are organically maintained. What is necessary are sun, rain, proper mowing, and the right groundcover.
The long-range objective of our project is to improve the
health of Wellesley’s environment and its residents. In communities throughout
Massachusetts similar groups are
working to improve local health and enviroments. They are being united by a
powerful theme which originated in and is now blossoming in Europe. This theme
is the Precautionary Principle, which states that “when an activity raises
threat of harm to humans or the environment, precautionary measures should be
taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established
scientifically.” If less-toxic
alternatives to pesticides are available, and they most certainly are, then the
precautionary approach is to chose safer materials rather than risk human and
environmental health.
The WPAC is supported by the Town of Wellesley’s Health Department, Natural Resources Commission, and Department of Public Works, and is a recipient of a grant from the Toxics Use Reduction Institute (TURI) at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. WPAC has a number of community partners, including the Charles River Watershed Association (CRWA), the Wellesley Cancer Prevention Project, the Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA), Bread and Circus, and the Needham Garden Center. We are following on the successes of pesticide reduction campaigns in the towns of Marblehead and Newton, and working to develop a strategic plan and town policy to reduce pesticide usage to zero or near-zero.
By June, we will have all our information, plans, and brochures available on the TURI website (www.turi.org) as well as our own (www.ci.wellesley.ma.us/nrc/pesticide) and other towns are encouraged to freely copy our material and promote pesticide use reduction strategies of their own. In the meantime, for more information please pick up a copy of Wellesley’s new brochure promoting lawns without pesticides from Bread and Circus Wellesley, Strata, or the Needham Garden Center, or call (781) 431-1019 x294.